Life Goes On #15

The year is 1977, the year my husband is reunited with his children, he last saw them in 1957. Tonda was 21 and Terry was 20, their age when he last seen them was 2 and 1 year old. Just out of the blue we received a call from Tonda, wanting to know if Wayne Cloud lived here and of course my husband had answered the phone. They wanted to come up this summer and visit for a week and of course we said yes and set a time to come, because Wayne wanted to take his vacation so he could be with them. When my husband hung up the phone he was crying and so happy, at last he could see his kid's.

They came in June, the weather was made to order, it was so nice and warm, no humidity yet. Tonda was married to Dave and they had a son two years old named Travis. Terry was not married, he had a girlfriend, he was going to bring her but she changed her mind. We stayed up almost all night when they first arrived and Tonda's son kept getting up because we were making too much noise talking and laughing. We planned a big family party so they could meet their four aunts, one uncle and at this time 15 cousins. The party was a success, I was glad to see everyone come and of course Uncle Tom brought his harmonic, we never got together without Toms harmonic, he tought his self to play, you just hummed a song and he picked up on it and played it. Terry had brought his guitar, he also tought himself to play and was making recordings, so all in all we had a good time. The week just flew by and we were telling them goodbye, but now we could keep in touch.

We found a house on Lincoln, it was a two bedroom farm house, with out buildings, it even had a pump with a handle over by the barn. We had well water, it was so clear and tasted good, we had it tested to make sure it was okay. While we were living there people walking by or bike riding would stop to drink out of the pump. We lived there from 1979 until 1988, this property looked like a park, we not only took care of the yard but we cut and raked the orchard. I had a lot of birds out there, I cataloged them and I had 24 different kinds, the prettiest of them were the Baltimore Orieols and the Scarlet Tanagers. We not only had apples, one little pear tree and our yard had about ten black cherry trees in it. The only time I did not like the cherry trees was when they started to fall, the yard was a mess and had to make sure they did not get tracked in. Now you can see why I had a lot of birds, not to mention I was feeding them.

Doug was dating now and getting in a lot of trouble, he was running with the wrong crowd of young people. His girlfriend was smoking dope and drinking, at this time she was just going on seventeen, her mother was divorced and she had about five children, her name was Pat. Doug decided he wanted to live with them for a while, I did not agree with this but Doug was nineteen and working, I just hoped he would behave himself. The year before this he had a wild fling at stealing, first he took a case of beer right out of a beer truck, the driver came out of the store and caught him. Doug got in his car and drove off with the beer, the driver wrote down his license plate number as he drove off. The sheriff came out to talk to us, Doug had just came home, the sheriff talked to him and did not arrest him because they had not drank any of the beer.

Doug only lived with Cindy's family for a few months, her mom told him to go home she had enough to feed. I was thankful he settled down and did not get into any more trouble. We had just got a dog from a farmer, we named him Jake, he was Shepard and Lab mix, all four of his legs were Shepard color, his ears look like a Lab, his body was black and his head had both breeds colors. I loved him dearly, he became my best friend, I let him run during the day and he never went on the road, he had too much fun running the fields and hunting gofers.

In August of 1979 my older sister June committed suicide, she had become an alcoholic and could not face the world any longer. One night she drank too much, she went out into the garage, closed the garage door, got into the car and started it, her husband did not find her until the next morning. My sister, bless her heart was never happy with her station in life, she had married into money and had too much time on her hands, she was not happy with the children she had adopted. She always told Stella and myself how lucky we were to have had children and she was unable to have any. She was born into the era that women should marry, have children and be a housewife. She also lived too long with my aunt and she was not happy we came to Michigan, it was like we messed up her plans to be an only child, also she was very moody. I loved my sister very much and I would give anything to have her back, I don't know maybe I did not do enough for her or help more with her problem. She took too many pills which she overdosed and almost died. The funeral was a closed casket, I guess the carbon monxide on her body was not a pretty site. I know this sounds crazy but to this day I will find myself talking to her and telling her I still love her and miss her every day of my life, my sister was only 47 years old.